Double your shelf space - build a cardboard shelf riser!

Want to double your shelf space with minimal effort? Then building a shelf riser might be just the thing for you.

Over the weekend I found myself with an overabundance of cardboard boxes (don't ask!) and while procrastinating I decided to try my hand at building some cardboard shelf risers for one of my bookcases.

I found two cardboard boxes used for fruit packaging which turned out to be very sturdy and almost the perfect height (10cm) I needed. Sadly the length is just 20cm shy of the actual width of my shelves, but I can live with that and the extra space should allow room for larger/odd sized books.  

I very carefully cut the box into two halves of about 19cm wide. I then found another box with the same height to use as structural support for the middle of the riser to prevent any sagging.

I repeated the process with the other 2 boxes and in less than an hour I had bookshelf risers for my entire bookcase.

The smaller box just slides underneath the shelf riser and provides more than enough support.

You could glue them together, but I prefer to have them separate in order for easy adjustments to be done.

With matching widths they fit perfectly together and provide a very sturdy structure to support the weight of the books.

I placed some white A4 paper sheets on top of the riser to provide some protection for the books. If you are feeling particularly crafty you could paint the riser or cover it with some cloth material. Since the riser won't be visible when you put books on the shelves I decided to save myself the trouble and leave them as is.

The final result looks pretty good even if I say so myself. You can use the shelf riser to have a double row of books on each shelf with all the titles being visible. Depending on the depth and height of your bookcase you might be able to accommodate hardcovers on both, but this works best for paperbacks as the added height of the riser might not leave enough room for shelving hardcovers on the riser.

I'm not very handy, but with very little effort I managed to double my bookshelf space and I'm quite impressed with the result. If you have some extra cardboard boxes and a bit of time I definitely suggest you give this a try. Best of all it was completely free!